


Turmoil

by pickledragon



Series: Pressing Matters [4]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: (but its undertale so not for long), (past) - Freeform, Asgore remembers resets, Gen, Implied Character Death, Introspection, Minor Asgore Dreemurr/Toriel, Pre-Canon, Toriel remembers resets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-12-25 20:07:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18268469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pickledragon/pseuds/pickledragon
Summary: Toriel spends her time making her way back through the city streets, with a small salary of gold she earns selling her pies in the market. Re-learning the streets monsterkind had abandoned for the larger capitol of New Home takes a long time. It is. Nice. Moving back through the past as an ordinary citizen, instead of a Queen.Asgore's life has compressed itself down into several key processes. It's a lonely life, but not altogether unsatisfying. He still maintains the best garden in the Undergound. Still hosts royal conferences and patrols judgement hall. Only now, he does it alone.





	Turmoil

**Author's Note:**

> the fic for this month: small but containing multitudes.

Life in the Ruins is quiet. Peaceful. Everything a former queen could want in a change of pace. The populace, mostly large families of froggitts and spiders, largely manage themselves, and there's a bustling market in the city streets, despite the empty corridors closer to Home. 

Toriel spends her time making her way back through the city streets, with a small salary of gold she earns selling her pies in the market. Re-learning the streets monsterkind had abandoned for the larger capitol of New Home takes a long time. It is. Nice. Moving back through the past as an ordinary citizen, instead of a Queen. 

 

Asgore's life has compressed itself down into several key processes. He gets up each morning. Puts on his crown. Fills out paperwork, takes a walk around New Home. Burns pies for a couple of hours before heading down to the throne room to wait for audiences. Back to his room and to sleep. 

It's a lonely life, but not altogether unsatisfying. He still maintains the best garden in the Undergound. Still hosts royal conferences and patrols judgement hall. Only now, he does it alone. 

 

Toriel can remember back when monsterkind first fled Underground. Monsters would gather by the skylight from the top of Mount Ebbott, even though none of them could actually leave. They'd spend hours just sitting there, enjoying the occasional rays of a sun they would never be able to experience. Until they left that behind, too. 

She was still a young queen then, uncertain and willing to put on a brave face. Toriel doesn't think she can be afraid, anymore. When you've already walked through the fire more time than you can count, nothing can ever really mean as much. 

 

The fourth human has made its way down to the Underground and word has spread quickly. The door to the Ruins creaks as they step quietly into Snowdin. They make their way through the forest, and are stopped at Undyne. 

Asgore has a room reserved for the bodies and glass cases for the souls. This one is bright blue, and it pulses when Undyne places it in his hands. Usually they make it to New Home; this human must have given up early. Asgore can almost feel the dust in the crevices of his hands as he puts the soul in its place. 

Only a couple more now. Asgore cannot leave anything to error, or the Underground still has a chance of losing hope. No more chances: everything has to be perfect.

 

Toriel has met every human that has fallen down. The only access point from the Surface is the most unreachable: no monster can stretch that high. 

It's a one way trip. 

She visits there every day, the one place the sun touches the Underground. Where she buried her child. Where their favorite flowers grow.  
And, more often than not, there is a human lying there, soul glowing brightly and eyes wary. 

Toriel takes them, clothes them, feeds them, and eventually, sends every single one on their way. She has long moved past a motivation to create destiny. Instead, she is forever stuck watching. A prologue to a grand story that is never re-read. 

 

Asgore has gotten good at hiding things. He carries the weight of thousands of souls and the three most important things he has ever lost. Asgore remembers every human he's killed, every time the world stutters, stutters, and then stops. It used to do that around his child as well, and even then he found himself remembering the gaps. There's nothing to it, of course. What would he do?

 

Toriel remembers the distinct sensation of dying. The human children are young and unwise. They never leave her that way. There's no one in the Ruins to tell about her nightmares, waking up in a cold sweat and the world fuzzy around her as it loads into a carbon copy of the one she had just left. She carries on, regardless. 

 

The texture of his days is neverending. If Asgore could move backwards and undo it all, he would. But time moves on and so does he. He bakes better pie and takes up knitting. His garden grows stronger and his souls more numerous. He still remembers the hundreds of times they've died. 

He's still hopeful. 

 

Life is a rhythmic march for her. For Toriel, there was no other option. She invests in local business, rebuilds Home loose brick by loose brick. She remakes the bed for each new human and keeps the door to the Ruins oiled, for inevitability. Toriel has died so many times, she's surprised she's not dust.

She holds on.

**Author's Note:**

> learningthomas.tumblr.com


End file.
